COME BACK MISS PIPPS is a unique Our Gang entry in that adult actors dominate the story rather than the kids. Sara Haden stars as the beloved schoolteacher Miss Pipps whose "softness" with her students is despised by mean old school board head Mr. Pratt (Charles Wilson) who has her fired. The children are outraged and decide to perform a play showing how unfair Miss Pipps' dismissal was and what a nasty character old Mr. Pratt is.
This film is really Haden and Wilson's show and they are terrific. Sara Haden, best known for playing "Aunt Milly" in the Andy Hardy film series, charms as the gentle youngish spinster whose whole life is her students. Charles Wilson was in almost 200 films from 1920-1941, though usually in small and often unbilled roles. He is perhaps best known for playing another evil man named Pratt as the crooked lawyer in W. C. Fields' TILLIE AND GUS (1933). This was sadly Mr. Wilson's final film; he died about three weeks before this film was released in October 1941. His role is a fitting swan song to his career and his stock persona as a crabby and sinister old man, his character fleshed here out to add a touch of vulnerability and pathos. There's an extra touch of melancholy here in knowing 1941 audiences watching this film obviously had know idea that this unheralded but familiar player had passed away just days before the film's release.
This film is really Haden and Wilson's show and they are terrific. Sara Haden, best known for playing "Aunt Milly" in the Andy Hardy film series, charms as the gentle youngish spinster whose whole life is her students. Charles Wilson was in almost 200 films from 1920-1941, though usually in small and often unbilled roles. He is perhaps best known for playing another evil man named Pratt as the crooked lawyer in W. C. Fields' TILLIE AND GUS (1933). This was sadly Mr. Wilson's final film; he died about three weeks before this film was released in October 1941. His role is a fitting swan song to his career and his stock persona as a crabby and sinister old man, his character fleshed here out to add a touch of vulnerability and pathos. There's an extra touch of melancholy here in knowing 1941 audiences watching this film obviously had know idea that this unheralded but familiar player had passed away just days before the film's release.